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Arts & Entertainment

Hoboken High Prepares For Encore of 'Fires in the Mirror'

Student production preps one-night performance to benefit Haitian rescue efforts

With high school productions, you never quite know what to expect. Occasionally though, a performance surprises you.

This Saturday, Hoboken High School's encore production of "Fires in the Mirror" should do that and in the process shed light on a subject that for many, including this writer, has become an overlooked footnote in recent history.  

On August 18, 1991, a Lubavitch Jew named Yosef Lifsh lost control of his station wagon in Crown Heights, Brooklyn hitting and killing a seven-year-old Guyanese boy named Gavin Cato. The incident sparked a three-day riot in the predominantly Caribbean-American, West Indian, and African American community, which resulted in the deaths of at least two civilians, including 29-year-old graduate student Yankel Rosenbaum. In the end, 129 arrests were made and 175 people were injured. Six stores were looted or burned, 27 cars destroyed, and 225 robberies committed for an estimated $1 million in damages in what has since been described as one of the largest recent examples of anti-semitism.  

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The incident served as the inspiration for playwright and actress Anna Deavere Smith's forthcoming play, "Fires in the Mirror," which premiered in New York City in 1992. Consisting of 30 monologues grouped by various themes including "Identity" and "Race," each monologue is actually derived from an interview Smith conducted with an observer or participant of the riot. Similar to how Moisés Kaufman's "The Laramie Project" culled various monologues from Laramie, Wyoming locals to portray a community's reaction to the 1998 murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard, the 26 real-life characters in "Fires in the Mirror" offer visceral first-hand glimpses into the Crown Heights riot.

"Oftentimes, I find we go so far back in history for kids," says Paula Ohaus, Coordinator of Theater Arts at Hoboken High School, who selected the play. "But kids are very clued in to what's very contemporary for them."

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Hoboken High School originally presented the show last December to a stunned audience, which included Mayor Dawn Zimmer.

"She had a lot of great things to say," said stage manager and Hoboken High alum Marleny Alonzo. "She really wanted a bigger audience to come see it."

Family and friends of the actors were also pleasantly surprised by the play's potency and performances.   

"It's not what my mom expected," said freshman actor Imani Hightower. "Her reaction to this was, 'Wow, I didn't think high school kids could pull off something like that.'" The freshman said the performance opened her mother's eyes.  

"And although it happened a few years ago," Hightower continued, "everything that people are saying in the play still relates to the present: racism, sexism, degrading women, even degrading men."

"Right off the bat, my family knew it wasn't a musical like I've always done," said Saquan Williams, a senior whose powerful performance as Leonard Jeffries also won him the Governor's Award in Drama at this year's STANJ theater festival. "My brother, though, he loved it. He thought the message I was trying to give came across well, and he's honest about a lot of things."

Because of audience reaction and the recent devastating earthquake in Haiti, Ohaus decided to present an encore presentation this Saturday. All proceeds from ticket sales will go towards a charity benefiting rescue operations in Haiti.

Resurrecting the production did present a challenge. Though the lighting, sets and costumes were quickly found and reconstructed in two days, Alonzo admitted that some of the actors needed a refresher on their lines. Of course, there was also the issue of working around everyone's schedules.

Judging from rehearsals though, the show should be just as potent now as it was last month.

"The thing that we care about as an audience is the revelation of truth," said Ohaus. "Anybody can get up and say words and pretend. That's not what really moves a person. What moves you is when it resonates, when it is truthful, and I believe this is."

"Fires in the Mirror" by Anna Deavere Smith at the Hoboken High School Auditorium. Saturday, February 6, 7 p.m. General Admission: $10, College Student with ID: $7, Students: $5, Seniors: $2  (all proceeds go toward relief efforts in Haiti). 

 

 

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